Archive for June, 2024

Snow in Summer

It’s mid-to-late June, and it looks like there’s snow on the ground here in southern Michigan. In northern Michigan it might be actual snow, but here it is just the cottonwood trees shedding.

I didn’t get a good picture of the fluffy white “cotton” falling gently through the air, but this is what it looks like after it lands.

picture of cottonwood litter on the grass

picture of cottonwood litter on the grass

Unfortunately, it does not pack well into snowballs, nor can you make fabric out of it. It’s just for visual interest, and for finding out who has seasonal allergies.

Like snow in summer and like rain in harvest, So honor is not fitting for a fool.

Proverbs 26:1

Various and Sundry Thoughts

Here are some thoughts I jotted down that aren’t quite sufficient for their own individual blog posts. If you’re the type of person who likes Twitter, pretend each of these is a tweet.

  • Mom has a couple of dictionaries she won back in school for being first place in the spelling bee. I think that’s backwards – the spelling bee loser should get the dictionary.
  • Someone asked me “If Cinderella’s glass slipper was a perfect fit, how did it fall off?” And the answer is that it was a slipper not a sticker.
  • The person who coined the phrase “when one door closes, another door opens” must have had a refrigerator like our old one. The top freezer door kept popping open when the main fridge door is shut vigorously. This one was compliments of Delta – I don’t know if he made it up or heard it somewhere.
  • The mosquitoes here are pretty bad, but the other day no matter how many I swatted I kept seeing more. It turns out I just had a bunch of eye floaters, no wonder I couldn’t hit them.
  • What if I want further ado?

How can you say to your brother, ‘Brother, let me take out the speck that is in your eye,’ when you yourself do not see the log that is in your own eye? You hypocrite, first take the log out of your own eye, and then you will see clearly to take out the speck that is in your brother’s eye.

Luke 6:42

Sorting Socks

When the boys get to high school age, we give them their own laundry basket and tell them they’re responsible for their own laundry. So we have only one child left who throws his dirty laundry in our hamper.

It makes it much easier to sort now, before that I had to check if this shirt was Gamma’s or Delta’s.

And socks. Socks were the worst because there aren’t sizes to go from like the shirts and shorts.

But sorting is easy now – my wife’s stuff is pretty distinct compared to mine and Delta’s. And I know which clothes are mine, so anything left goes in Delta’s pile.

Until…

We were at Costco and someone remembered that Delta needed new socks. Well, he had seen my Weatherproof socks and felt them and they were comfortable so he asked for those.

I was against it – I thought he should get a set of socks that were unique to him. But I lost that one and he got a set of socks that matched mine.

I thought I would be able to tell his socks apart from mine because his would be newer and wouldn’t be getting threadbare in the heel and ball-of-the-foot areas.

Not all my pairs of socks were worn enough for that to be foolproof. But I did find a foolproof method.

He takes his socks of by peeling them off, so they’re always inside out in the laundry. I always takes mine off by sliding them, so that they don’t go inside out and that saves me work later because I don’t have to turn them back inside in.

So now it’s simple – any socks in the basket that are inside out go into his pile, and any that are outside out go in my pile. Hasn’t failed me yet.

Then He said, “Put your hand inside the fold of your robe again.” So he put his hand into the fold again, and when he took it out of the fold, behold, it was restored like the rest of his flesh.

Exodus 4:7

Tie Fighter Controls

Having recently watched the Star Wars series with Delta, I was reminded of how odd the flight controls are for the Tie Fighters. Or maybe just Darth Vader’s Tie Fighter. Or maybe it’s just the targeting control.

Either way, it always struck me as awkward how he does the little twisting movement with his fingers, like he’s unscrewing a bottle cap. It would be pretty easy to mess up when you’re in the middle of a dogfight, I would think.

Here is what it looks like normally:

image of Darth Vader in his Tie Fighter

And this is what it reminds me of:

image of Darth Vader in his Tie Fighter, putting chalk on a cue stick

It never was really clear to me what he is supposed to be doing, but to me, he’s practicing chalking up his cue stick.

Therefore through this Jacob’s wrongdoing will be forgiven; And this will be the full price of the pardoning of his sin: When he makes all the altar stones like pulverized chalk stones; When Asherim and incense altars will not stand.

Isaiah 27:9